Students display their projects at the CBSE Regional Level Science Exhibition in Bhubaneswar. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 24: The innovative side of 150 budding scientists came to the fore with the CBSE Regional Level Science Exhibition starting here today.

Sixty-two interesting working models and concepts on the theme “Science, Society and Environment” were displayed at the two-day event, hosted by the DAV Public School (Unit-VIII). The budding scientists are from 38 CBSE schools of Bhubaneswar region, which covers Odisha, Bengal and Chhattisgarh.

The 10 best projects would qualify for the national rounds to be held in Delhi next month.

Madhumita Bhatta, a Class XII student from a Bengal school, displayed a model that grabbed many eyeballs. Using a toy train, she demonstrated how by converting mechanical energy into electrical energy remote villages in the country could be illuminated.

“The motion of the wheels of a train can generate electricity if attached to a parallel plate capacitor. When I rotate the toy train’s wheels for half an hour, it produces electricity for at least 15 minutes. But since a real train runs much faster, the efficiency of the capacitor is heightened,” she said.

Another participant, Amlan Saswat Mishra, a Class VIII student of the host school, has devised a model called “Ozonator” that promises to check environmental hazards posed by global warming. “The depletion of the ozone layer has resulted in global warming and climate change. The Ozonator, which would be powered by solar panels, can patch the holes by generating huge amounts of oxygen. This process will take place in a spaceship. The ozone layer would be repaired in a matter of 25 years by trapping chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),” Amlan said.

The six sub-themes of the exhibition are agriculture and food security, health, mathematics in daily life, environmental issues and concerns, disaster management and energy crisis. This exhibition, open to students from classes VII to X, is organised every year by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Delhi, to promote scientific temper and technological creativity among children.

A panel of 10 judges that includes eminent scientists, researchers and academics will select the top 10 exhibits according to the student’s knowledge of the project, creativity, innovation and imagination, originality of the idea and the application of scientific principle.